richfiles

So, I found something while looking for a bottom plate to close up my custom keyboard build... These panels came from 1960s/70s era test equipment... the heart of the Apollo era. They have both a color and a texture that I think feels and looks good, and suits the period well. They are aluminum panels with a laminated and textured plastic layer on the top, and gloss paint on the bottom. They have a rounded front edge. I am now considering using these as my primary controller surface panel. I'll have to trim/bend them to size, and there will be seams, but that's fine. The Apollo panels had seams too, and my seams will be located at the edges where the keyboard notch sits. I also have some mildly curved steel square tube from an old Gamestop PS3 display I disassembled. I might mount that underneath for rigidity, and to put a uniform convex curve to the panel. Haven't decided definitively on that one yet. It would mean the front edge would be very thin, but the thickness would rapidly increase, allowing me more forward clearances for my throttle and my Stage and Abort buttons. The small wood piece with the wires hanging out is for a future number pad attachment for my keyboard. I used an Apple MagSafe connector to create magnetically locking side panels. I will be able to slide the keyboard forward, and snap my number pad to it for regular use, and when I want to game, I can snap off the number pad and set it aside, and slide my keyboard into the cutout in the controller where it can comfortably sit during a KSP gaming session. Keyboard still has some wiring and programming left, before it's functional. Look at that beautiful texture! It's a little beat up, but I have close to a dozen of these panels, If I'm not mistaken. I'll just pick through them all and grab the nicest two for the horizontal surface. I think I'll use a few more of these vertically for the vertical readout/gauge surface or for the top panels. That will have the benefit of providing me with a nice rounded edge on the top as well. The aluminum is thin enough that I can drill it and use my nibbler tool easily on it. That will make for very custom tailored openings for the various gauges and meters. A touch of grey paint will be used to cover the exposed aluminum underneath, wherever cuts must be made that might be exposed. I can also still do rectangular cutouts and backlight those with plexi and those translucent printable sheets. I'll still need to have it done at a print shop, as my printer is deteriorating. Benefit of having cutouts with plexi behind, Is I can get most of the legends on a few sheets. No huge sheets needed for whole panels. It won't be an Apollo copy, but I think it'll still do, while still keeping a decent look. And for those curious about the keyboard, Here it is, in all it's glory! Yup! That's a "Danger Zone" key! There's the magnetic connector and the embedded magnets in the side trim. The magnetically locking number pad side trim. They make such a lovely snap when they come together! And here's part of the hand wiring. I decided to hand wire LEDs later on... I still need to finish that. Went old school and made this my first practice in the classic art of wire lacing/looming. I actually used waxed dental floss as my cord. There are only 4 pieces of continuous floss not he entire thing. Once piece is a single short bit at the right shift key to secure a single wire, and two pieces could have been one, but I did a short trial run down by the space bar, just to see if I could do it right. Technically could have been done in 2 pieces! It's really a continuous knotting method. I plan to use the technique inside my kerbal controller, to keep wiring in tight, managed bundles.

The issue with negativity, is that it only takes a small crowd to incite a lot of attention. It's the silent lurker who is the majority. You get the defenders, who try to counter the negativity. They are also a minority. The result is you get a very vocal minority having at it with another very vocal minority, and it sounds LOOOOOUD!!! I like to think most people on these forums are far more reserved, and choosing to not get involved. Me, I'm taking the loud mouthed side of defending Squad! This place is a nice place. If people bug you, just set your profile to ignore them, or however that works. i've actually never done that.

Oh you! If Jeb, Bill, and Bob are old enough to fly rockets to the Mun, they're old enough for a chill brewski when they kick back at the KSC Astronaut Center rec room. There's nothing evil or wrong about beer, or mentioning it... No need for flanderization! And this coming from someone who maybe drinks 1-3 times a year, if even that! Just never cared for it.

What!?! I thought I had the trademark to "free time that I don't have™"

No, you are wrong. The trusted modders and a select few would still have gotten this a couple weeks early, and you'd still have to wait for 1.1 to officially release. They would just have a weaker bug testing force.

and No... No you don't "deserve" the same privileges. And no, Squad is not compelled to offer early access on every platform or distribution model. Squad has offered a "select few" the privilege of early access for bug testing and mod updating for a LONG time. I don't know how long, but a while. Trying to devalue bug squashing is incredibly naive... considering the BUGS that have made it into every recently released version of KSP, typically requiring hot fixes... Which SURPRISE, are released AFTER the game hits mass numbers of users. Users who are statistically bound to find bugs that the dev team and the pre-release recipients missed. YOU ARE NOT part of their development team, nor on their trusted list of modders and testers. They LITERALLY do not owe you early access, PERIOD. They made the terms of the early access clear. Steam offers a simple delivery system for daily patches. If you don't have access to KSP via Steam, then you unfortunately don't meet the requirements... They do not have the infrastructure in place to offer this via the KSP Store. This is NOT A PART of the official release of 1.1, and has NOTHING TO DO with the official release of KSP 1.1! I it's also pretty pretentious to be putting down Steam users for using a distribution service SQUAD CHOSE TO UTILIZE! Attacking Steam users for choosing Steam? Petty! Sure, Steam takes a cut, but they also handle the infrastructure, and distribution, and store front, and part of the promotion, and, and, and... If you can't understand the value in that, then I honestly don't know how you can possibly understand the value of Steam's distribution and infrastructure. For disclosure... I DO have Steam, and I probably WON'T play the pre-release. I don't feel I'd have time for bug testing, and am not interested in daily updates and extensive mod installs/patches/incompatibilities. I run a modded game, and am not bug testing or developing any of those mods. Quite frankly, I plan to wait for stability. Instead... I'mma build a freakin' CASTLE with an AIRSHIP at Abernathy Farm! Fallout 4 Settlements... It's like post nuclear Minecraft! I can do that while waiting for 1.1 Pro tip: Abernathy Farm is an AMAZING settlement to build at... It's over 20 "stories" tall, very long, acceptably wide, and while lightly sloped, fairly level at the ends. It's also a short walk from both Sanctuary and Red Rocket! Also, it has a CAT!!! I am one sad SOB! I once nuked my save file out of about 2 MONTHS of progress with a stray F9... I had landed on Mun, had a BASE on Minmus (with 4 landings to assemble), and stations orbiting both Mun and Minmus, and had ships on their way to Duna and Eve... When the dust settled, I was still at the point where I needed to orbit Mun for the first time. I think lost over 1200 science!

Nothing has beaten the 0.24 Hype Train... yet... I expect nothing short of ubergloriousness for 1.1!!! Get on it guys!

No kidding, The KSP Store's servers would catch fire! Then the forums!

You REALLY seem to not comprehend what is going on here. WHY would they pull KSP from the store cause you can't get in on a beta test/courtesy pre-release for modders? Beta tests/pre-releases like this are NOT standard releases. You're really coming across as self-entitled when you whine about stuff like this. THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL RELEASE. It's intended for bug testing and allowing modders to update their mods so when 1.1 OFFICIALLY releases, probably a couple weeks later, you will be able to download the OFFICIAL RELEASE of KSP 1.1, and be able to get the major mods for it right away, instead of waiting a week or two for mod updates. The store has nothing to do with this pre-release. That you paid money for the game has nothing to do with this pre-release, This type of pre-release has happened with practically EVERY VERSION of KSP for AGES. It's just that they CHOSE to open this one up to the public... provided they use Steam, which is the only viable platform that can handle the DAILY patches. I COMMEND Squad's business practices! Grow UP! Talk about ungrateful... Squad busts their butts for us, and you act like this! Don't worry, the update will come... As I said to the last guy, this is a PRE-release preview/bug/beta test of sorts. Steam offered the infrastructure for the DAILY patch downloads, because people participating in this will be helping find bugs and adapting mods so they will be ready right away when 1.1 officially releases... So no, it's not an "update", per say. The update will happen, probably a couple weeks later, when 1.1 officially releases, with many major mods already adapted for run on it, and most of the bugs squashed (we hope)

This just makes me realize how far off I am with my hardware version... I know how to do the hardware, but I just do not have the programming side of it down. I have a LOT to learn to get this up and running! It is an inspiration though to keep moving forward!

I am incredibly new to programming on anything beyond a Commodore! As such, I have already been planning to simplify my code, by splitting tasks to dedicated Arduinos. I plan to have a Mega serve as my primary I/O unit. It'll send necessary data via serial to other Arduinos, as well as monitor the toggles and the joysticks, and directly communicate that data back to the USB port to the computer. Basically, it'll only do things it can send quickly over serial, or do rapid reads or writes. No significant processing of any kind will happen on board, save for states and communication. I may also have it handle my analog meters, as I only need to set PWM values as "analog" outs. My FDAI (navball) and my LED displays will each have their own arduino dedicated to rendering the necessary outputs. Since the LED segment display drivers need you to break down numbers into each separate digit (how annoying), I'll have another arduino (probably a Pro Mini) handle that, and maybe an annunciator panel. Some of the Simple on/off LED enunciators may get handled by the main Arduino Mega. The FDAI will have its own dedicated Mega or possibly a Teensy 3.1 (not sure if the smaller Arduinos will have the memory, and I still don't know if the Mega is even fast enough to do all the trigonometry). I have to generate 9 attenuation values and polarity states to control 9 analog switches, and 9 multiplying DACs, based on angular deviation from 0° at both 120° and 240° from the yaw, pitch and roll angles of the vessel. It'll likely be a lookup table of values. Those states and values will shape a reference 400 Hz sine wave to emulate the functionality of a synchro, of which I need to emulate three, to drive my FDAI hardware. I am already looking at no less than three microcontrollers on my build. I may use a tiny 3.5 inch diagonal color CRT with a Raspberry Pi, someday, to generate some manner of cosmetic display. Maybe have little "GIF" like animations of KSC staff "communicating" with the vessel, IVA views, that sort of thing. The only thing it might actually DO, control wise, would be to emulate a keyboard and press whatever hot key I have set for Chatterer, so i set "coms sounds" when it "does" things. It won't actually "do" anything but look nifty. Waiting to snag one of those Raspberry Pi Zero units, since they are dirt cheap and you can connect a composite low res NTSC monitor to them.

I would suggest: Add support for the number pad to control an additional 10 Action Groups, for a total of 20 custom Action Groups. Since practically ALL modern keyboards with a number pad report the number keys of the number pad as unique keys, separate from the row of numbers above the alphas (even if they return the same character), would it be possible to create an additional 10 Action groups that are activated by the number pad's numerical keys? I know I could DEFINITELY put 20 action groups to use as opposed to the currently limited 10 + the "predefined" action groups. Speaking of the predefined action groups, I concur that we should also have Antennas, Solar Panels, and Radiators as additional button accessible action groups on the Altimeter (also, each should have a unique key to activate) I would suggest as follows: [A]| 000000m | / \|L|S| \ ------- ||<-o |G|R| \______^_|_\___/|B|A| Where A, L, G, and B refer to the existing Abort, Lights, Gear, and Brakes, respectively, but the new S, R, and A would refer to Solar, Radiators, and Antennas. I suggest Antennas, since with the later plans for a coms upgrade to the game, that might be more important. We can always repurpose those features, much like we have done in the past... Abort, Lights, Gear, and Brakes are 4 more action groups when you're in a pinch! There also needs to be a way to assign Action groups in transit. I can't tell you how much of a pain it can be to dock craft together, and have it screw up Action Groups, or you be uncertain what the actual assignment of action groups on such a merged vessel would be. I think that more advanced designs need finer control, and right clicking parts on a moving vessel can be difficult. SSTO craft, tugs, science vessels/probes, anything using Infernal Robotics... 10 action groups is simply not enough. One more suggestion, also related to that UI cluster... I would also suggest being able to click on the altimeter when below 10000 radar meters, to be able to switch the altimeter to show the radar altimeter. If the numbers could be made with a different color, to differentiate it (black on yellow, maybe yellow/red stripes on the last 1000 meters?), that would be great. Exceeding the radar altimeter range would auto toggle back to ASL Altimeter.

I'd also like to make a very simple suggestion, one Squad could likely implement with VERY minimal effort... Add 10 more action groups on the number pad. Modern keyboards treat the number pad and the number row as different keys... The computer can tell the difference between whether you pressed the number 1 above the Q, vs the number 1 on your number pad. That one minor upgrade would give anyone with a full keyboard, or a number pad accessory attached to your computer by USB, access to 20 action groups, out of the box. Furthermore, if the config menu supported an action group "list" mode, with "ADD" and a "REMOVE" buttons, or an in game list like what Persa suggested, then maybe you could assign ANY unassigned key or combo to add additional action groups at will... The default would just be the 20 that comes from 1-9+0 in the row above the alphas, and the 0-9 of the number pad. If you have a gaming keyboard with macro keys... As long as the keypresses are detectable, you could use them as well. If the keys really only register as macros, then you'd have to first bind them in their driver software to something like Shift-Alt-Numpad1 for Macro key 1 and Shift-Alt-Numpad2 for Macro 2 and so on. Then you would bind, in the proposed action groups configuration list, Shift-Alt-Numpad1 for action group 21, Shift-Alt-Numpad2 for A.G. 22, and so on, till you've run out of macro keys. Even without the reconfigurable, bindable list though... Adding support for an additional 10 action groups assigned to a keyboard's number pad would double the number of customizable stock action groups. Add the additional "assigned" action groups (gear, brakes, lights, abort), and that would bring the total number of stock action groups to 24. It's a simple solution, and even a cheap full-size keyboard or a USB number pad isn't a hard thing to add to a setup that doesn't have a full keyboard (like a laptop).

I have a feeling that the Windows 10 issues might have killed some of the development efforts on these KSP Serial IO based controllers and Simpits. That, or people are just holding their breath for 1.1. I have to admit, between Fallout 4 coming out in November, and the wait for 1.1... I HONESTLY have not really sat down with 1.0.5 at all! The good news, Is I'm on the final stretch of my mechanical keyboard build. I think once that's officially done with, I'll have one less project and an excuse to get back to my Kerbal controller. I think the end of bad (cold) weather will also help, as I tend to do a lot of my big projects by traveling to my father's place, and working in his barn turned small shop. I have considered trying to layout a PCB for the FDAI controller. I certainly HAVE copper clad board I can etch one out with. We'll see... Wait, what's that... Preston Garvey needs me to clear out some raiders from... Yeah? Ah, and I see you marked the location on my map for me... Thanks...

I like to name my ships after disasters... Columbia, Titanic, Fitzgerald, Challenger, Outta Gas, Gilly Vanilli...

That pic... Evanitis ♡ Jool and it's moons. I've never even considered any type of "near future" engine mods... Anyone with a mod can spend funds, beam 1.21 Gigawatts into space with a nuclear powered microwave beam, and pull straight line power thrusts. Unf. Boooooring! The challenge of KSP, for me, is to actually try to use the physics to fly my missions, and not brute force things. I DO rather enjoy over engineering my ships... I sent what amounts to a massive fuel station and a reusable lander to Duna and Ike to basically get ALL the biomes in a single trip. Strategic hops, conjunctions where multiple biomes sit near one another, etc. It was a very fun mission. I burned half my remaining leftover fuel for a mighty fast transfer back to Kerbin. A near straight line. I almost biffed the capture. Sure, I powered back, but my recklessness could have cost me the science for EVERY SINGLE BIOME OF THE ENTIRE DUNA SYSTEM. I had my final lander... an MK3 "shuttle" cockpit that would hold all 4 crew (my two Scientists, Engineer, and Pilot, plus a rescue I managed to snag on the way out), spammed with radial parachutes, and some radial rocket motors... had it perform a MechJeb guided landing near the KSC, and I used the motors and the last of my fuel to power land it on the VAB helipad. Sadly, i do not have screenshots of the Duna transfer... It was rather bland. Trip there was a normal Hohman transfer. Trip back was a literal power drive. I burned half my fuel, failed to realize that the nature of my burn was having my burn not only to arrest my travel, but to then reverse myself into catching up with Kerbin. It worked, just. I just barely got captured into an orbit, and used aerobraking to bring myself down. This was in 0.90, before reentry heat. I'd rather not try stunts like that again. With reentry heat, I would have lost my crew. Fancy multi slingshot orbits seem to be the most entertaining option, to be honest!

How did this double post? Oh well... I'll change this to... Hmm... I've never been to Jool. I'm saving anything beyond Eve and Duna for after I finish my hardware controller. I also plan to install Outer Planets Mod, so I'll have even more reason to enjoy crazy Jool assisted slingshots to the likes of Sarnus and Plock! Using REAL instruments, no less!

Quite honestly, I'd prefer to use the biodome and torus for my crew. It's a known fact that leisurely lounging in an artificial biome as a Kerbal consumes snacks and koffee makes the stress of the job just simply melt away! Could it be implemented as recourse generator for CivPop, but be manned (kerbed?) by crew, not civvies? I'd really hate to lose it as a resource for my regular kerbals. I think a really cool thing to do with it, would be to treat it as a science lab extension. Having a station or base with one of the structures incorporated, in conjunction with a science lab module, would provide low G natural settings where natural science could be performed by crew members. The side effect, is if Civ Pop is installed, it would also produce food, and consume whatever resources the CivPop biodome type structures consume, maybe at a rate that's a multiplier based on crewed capacity. Say, it takes a minimum of 1 crew to generate food, improve on science returns, but it only provides the max multiplier ÷ the crew capacity x the crew count on board the biodome/torus. It could also have a minimum crew to produce any results. So basically, I'm proposing that using the mod on it's own would allow you to create a small boost to science if a lab module is attached, and you crew both the lab module, and the biodome/torus. If the structure is half full, you get half the science multiplier bonus. if full, you get the full science multiplier bonus. If CivPop is installed, it'd require being manned by Crew, not civs, to operate, but would produce both the science bonuses, as well as function as a food resource for civilians, and consume the same resources civilian food production modules consume. At least that's what would appeal most to me. Creating hooks to TAC Life support and that snacks mod would also seem to be pretty cool. Seems a biodome ought to extend the viability of any long term mission by quite a bit. I'd ALSO LOVE if the torus could end up with an togglable spin animation, if that's a possible feature. the spin is the whole point of a torus. It doesn't need to work in warp, but the fact that if you apply a spin o it, you lose it after warp... well, it means manually spinning it up is simply futile. Just my thoughts on it, and how I think it'd best serve both separate and combined with other elements of the game and other mods. Glad to hear you are seeing success in your business venture! I hope for the best of success! We certainly will appreciate the fixing of the mod, but I can be patient. What you're doing IRL is a wonderful achievement! Also, for your amusement: I received a contract to Recover Calzon Kerman and his "wreckage". I failed to note the vessel mass when I clicked accept... Mother of God... I may just use a klaw to attach a docking port to this puppy and tell the contractor to suck it!

I had a 32000 ∆v transfer stage for my first Duna mission. Crew cabin was slightly offset (the MK3 cockpit), and I had the bright idea of EVAing to collect science™. I did not use any type of advanced capture maneuvers, and the vessel was BIG... It was multiple launched strings of Kerbodyne S3-14400 Tanks, docked to a hub, and tugged with a ring of NERV engines at the front hub, with the crew cabin attached in the middle. A set of retrograde engines allowed deceleration without turning the vessel (the vessel was WAY too big and floppy for a push design, so engines were at the center), I left the rockets at full throttle, but with no active control, SAS dropped and the imbalance of the ship caused it to start spinning wildly and began to drift off course, ejecting my EVAed Kerbal. I had to switch to the ship to regain control, and prevent self deconstruction of the whole thing. By the time I was stable, my Kerbal was so far out, she had to be selected from the map view, cause i couldn't press [ or ] to toggle to her. She was a couple Km out. I EVA'd her back and boarded. Got my darn EVA report at least. Continued the burn (with SAS keeping the ship stable) My orbit was not well circularized, but that was okay. I snagged an Ike encounter, and used Ike to help bring myself under control. I love the range of NERVs, but it pays to have some backup REAL thrust for emergencies. I did not have that.

I can vouch for the no friction thing... Poor Bill...

Silly, They were just klandestinely recovering Kosmonaut kit dropped by Kerbals from the kompeting KSC.

That's due to a time display limitation in KSP. KSP stores time displayed as a 32 bit value. It's a well known and long standing issue with LOOOONG game saves that time goes screwy after you exceed this value and it loops back to the beginning. It's one reason I STRONGLY wish the developers would address this. In a casual game, where you just deal in local planets, and maybe occasionally start new careers, a person may never encounter it. People who play rather hardcore and do long term solar system covering total exploration type missions may end up hitting that limit. With OPM, and now End, you can far more quickly run into these time glitches, as travel takes that much longer. It's one reason why I run multiple concurrent missions simultaneously in my game (and manage the logistics of timing them all out using Kerbal Alarm Clock). At the moment, I have 2 missions to Eve and 2 missions to Duna, and a pair of stations in the Kerbin system, but funnily enough, am still working on my Mun Landing, which will have been done before I have to worry about Duna or Eve! All this by the second year of my game As for End itself... The indications seem to believe this would be a massive rocky world, not a gas planet. Any chance of using Eve as the model vs Jool, then? I'd LOVE the challenge of a brutally high gravity object, far from home, to land and possibly take off from. That would be a whole new scale of a challenge in itself! The limited value of "collect science at X" for gas giants basically means that Jool, while pretty, is entirely dependent on it's local neighborhood to provide real long term interest. If Jool had no moons, I think Dres would see more activity. People would fly by Jool and go "Oh, pretty!", and then move on. This mod has great potential, but I really want to see all the effort and time to make a trip out to End be worth more than a fly by or an orbit. Do please consider making End rocky!

In another thread I mentioned my plans for the tiny color CRT display I found, and got pretty elaborate... Decided to snip the whole thing short, and put the meat of my ideas here, where it won't hijack someone else's simpit thread. So, as far as project status goes... Cold weather and the Minutemen... Almost all work on this custom controller project has ground to a near stand still, as all my major wood and metal working tools reside in an unheated barn a town over, and that is far too cold right now to be venturing that far away, for that amount of time, to do that kind of work! Fortunately, I can still work on electronics, but cash flow has been slow, so parts are on a trickle supply. I've also been focusing almost all my spare project time on my mechanical keyboard. It'll be only a couple more weeks before the key caps show up, so it's a rush to finish by then. Said cold forced me to saw oak with a hand saw, and file the curves I wanted, with a hand file. Dat oak tho... Hard stuff... Anyway, very excited about finishing that project! It's okay though... I'm really just waiting for 1.1 to launch, and for the mods to catch up on Kerbal stuff again... In the meantime, I'm busy having too much fun playing Fallout 4. My plan for my CRT is to get one of those cheap little Raspberry Pi Zero boards (the ones that are super cheap). I want to set it up to auto play animations of the IVA and mission control characters (Gene Kerman, etc) at random. If I can make that work, then I'll mount the CRT in portrait mode. It'd be purely aesthetic. Maybe SOMEDAY, it'll be possible to feed it a docking camera video feed to it, somehow. I'm sure the Raspberry Pi can do that, as long as the game has a mod and a means to actually stream the video to another device. Does anything even DO this yet? I know there are IN GAME docking port cameras. Are there ones that can stream the video? For now, I doubt if it'd even have any interactivity, other than a "Coms" switch on the panel that will be able to turn it on or off. Maybe "UHF Coms" could cover switching power to the CRT video section of the panel. That's one area where I plan to have a number of non game switches to make it feel more "space capsuley". I actually have enough ideas that I don't know if the 25 switches I ordered will be sufficient to cover my requirements anymore. Off the top of my head, I need 10 for Action Groups, unless I go with my nice pushbuttons, and i need 5 for basic flight state controls. I need one for the FDAI (Pro/retro-anti mode switch) and another for selecting stage or total resource display. If I have 2 Coms switches, that leaves me 6 switches to handle power. Not sure if that'll be sufficient. I haven't even considered an SCE to Aux switch! Thinking of mapping that one to "Escape", so it can save my ass and let me revert my telemetry to a previously known state! Basically, my idea is that power for the various components of the system will each have unique switches, with their own DC Bus or AC Bus supplies. To turn on the FDAI, for example, I'd need to tun on "AC BUS A" to enable the 400 Hz Sine wave generator that powers it (and provides the reference signal), but I'd also have to turn on a "DC Bus B" to power up the controller for it. "Main Fuel Cell" would be the primary power supply. "DC Bus A" could switch on the main controller circuits. "DC Bus Aux" could power on the 12 volt rail for some of my side projects, like integrated dimmer lighting controls for my display cabinets and desk lighting (yes, they are getting centrally controlled). "AC Bus B" could power up my CRT display. "AC Bus Aux" and "24v Bus Reg" could both trip a relay to power up the Hakko 927 soldering station guts I'm transplanting into the panel to do double service as a desk mounted quick access soldering station, and to supply the 24 volts I need to power up my 4-20mA loop current meters for resource display (4 of my analog meters were super cheap, but require extra circuitry to run). Each switch will enable it's respective function only, though. "24v Bus Reg" and "AC Bus Aux" would physically provide 24 volts to their respective circuits, only, but both would activate the relay that powers up the transformer. That's real simple to do with a couple diodes. As an example, I could have "Main Fuel Cell" and "DC Bus Aux" powered on to run my lighting, and the controller would effectively be off, save for probably a couple panel indicators indicating what's active. Plugging a soldering iron handle into the front panel and flipping the "AC Bus Aux" switch would power on the soldering station. I'll change the red LED displays of the soldering station to green LEDs, to match the style I'm using elsewhere in the control panel. A small number pad will allow temp settings to be entered, though I may be able to rig up the DSKY to do double duty, if I can get it to selectively interface. It currently does have a number pad, after all, but I'm not sure... I did previously talk about changing the DSKY keypad to KSP centric legends, vs Apollo legends. If I do use the DSKY keypad, I could control the existing soldering station keypad with transistors wired to close each button position, with the Arduino activating specific transistors to match the pressed DSKY keypad Key. Maybe I should double legend the DSKY keypad. Retain the numbers and Apollo stuff, but have secondary KSP specific legends for ease of operation and use. Turning "AC Bus Aux" off, and "24v Bus Reg" on will keep the 24 volt power supply enabled and bring up the resource meters. If I were ever so inclined to play KSP with one hand while soldering with the other... I guess I could flip both switches on and multitask. If the "AC Bus A" is off, then that also means the Gyro "OFF" flag will be popped in the FDAI. It's a mechanical flag indicator on the navball that pops out any time the system fails to read the gyros or has a gyro power failure. The "LOC" flag... I think I'll have it pop the "LOC" flag off when the controller powers up, when "DC Bus B" is enabled. For it to function, both flags must go away. If either flag appears, then the unit will not function. I have a Glide Slope flag too, but I have no idea what I'll use it for. Maybe Gs. "GS" for Gs. Pop the flag if I read high Gs.

Wow! I have no idea what you're using for that display, but it's impressive! That's gonna make one heck of a cockpit! Is that software on the computer, running off integrated an integrated graphics port, or is it a single board computer receiving telemetry? (**EDIT** A fake telemetry readout in a fake spaceship cockpit! Le GASP! Can't wait to see it done for real!) Regardless, it looks very professional! As for cold weather... I know how you feel. My own project has ground to a near stand still, as all my major wood and metal working tools reside in an unheated barn a town over, and that is far too cold right now to be venturing that far away, for that amount of time, to do that kind of work! Fortunately, I can still work on electronics, but cash flow has been slow, so parts are on a trickle supply. Furthermore, I've been focusing almost all my spare project time on my mechanical keyboard. It'll be only a couple weeks before the key caps show up, so it's a rush to finish by then. Very excited about finishing that project! It's oaky though... I'm really just waiting for 1.1 to launch, and for the mods to catch up to that... In the meantime, I'm busy having too much fun playing Fallout 4. I did have a major setback with my own project, specifically the FDAI (navball) controller. Turns out, an Arduino doesn't stand a CHANCE of communicating enough bits over I2C, or processing fast enough to control the raw data needed to feed the DACs at a sufficient rate to do the arbitrary waveform generation on 10 channels. one, maybe two channels, sure, but not 10. Fortunately, someone suggested a cheap DAC that featured an independent voltage reference input that allows me to use the DACs as attenuators. Now I only need to make a hardware 400 Hz sine generator, and feed that into the attenuator DACs... I only need to update those (x10) at the rate KSP sends telemetry updates, not at 400 Hz x timebase resolution x 10. Far more manageable! The good news, is that once I'm done with my keyboard, I think I'll go back to working on the FDAI controller. I need to actually BUILD the circuit... I've got almost all the parts for it already. Focus, me! Focus! The actual control panel itself has been untouched, cause the translucent synthetic paper (from Nekoosa paper products) that I plan to use for meter and control panel backlit panels... Is useless with a printer that doesn't print color well, anymore. When spring comes, I'll venture forth from my weather shuttered doors, once again, and find a print shop. Too darn cold! Anyhow, very, VERY awesome build you have going on, and that "glass cockpit" is looking mighty, mighty fine! Well, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy! The new plan for it is to get one of those cheap little Raspberry Pi Zero boards (the ones that are super cheap). I want to set it up to play animations of the IVA and mission control characters (Gene Kerman, etc) at random. If I can make that work, then I'll mount the CRT in portrait mode. It'd be purely aesthetic. I don't know if it'd even have any interactivity, other than a "Coms" switch on the panel that will be able to turn it on or off. That's one area where I plan to have non game switches to make it feel more "space capsuley". The various components of the system will each have their own unique power switches, with their own "DC Bus" or "AC Bus" supplies labeled ("DC Bus A", "AC Bus Aux", etc). I think it sounds like a cool, relatively "immersive" plan.

So, what was this atomic element, again? I missed that detail. You know... Trying to close the Flag Plaque button instead of the actual window close button is ALMOST as bad as trying to rotate pics of KSP on the internet by right clicking and dragging... Guilty on both counts.